A Storm Is Coming
by Juliette's solo act
Summary: AU- Deathly Hallows. Narcissa casts a paralysing spell over Harry, who then does not defeat Voldemort at the Battle of Hogwarts. Voldemort triumphs and his reign of terror begins. However, one night, Malfoy is thrown into Hermione's life carrying a secret about the Boy Who Lived, and they embark on a journey together. Can they learn to accept each other in order to change history?


**Hello everybody, and thanks just for clicking on the link. *Yay***

**Really struggling to find things to say in this little /AN thingy, so I might just shut up and let you read this ridiculously long chapter. I am sorry it's long, for those of you who don't like an overload of words per chapter, but I had to introduce the world that my brain decided to create in the middle of a long car journey and the only way to do that was to go from the Battle of Hogwarts. Also, I'd really love it if you could point out any incoherent bits, because I sort of jumped around writing bits of Chapter One here and there, so things might not link up as well as I'd like them to. Obviously, I'd also absolutely hug you to bits if you could leave me a quick comment telling me whether you think this is a plausible alternate ending to Deathly Hallows.**

**I clearly don't own any of the stuff that belongs to JK, and I feel I should forewarn you that I used her text from Chapter Thirty-Four and Chapter Thirty-Six of Deathly Hallows to write the first section of this chapter, but I've retold it from a different point of view. I just wanted it to follow the actual ending as closely as possible so that it was more real and things slotted together better. Oddly, I never realised quite how much work went into writing just those two chapters until I tried to recreate the events myself. She's a genius.**

**Oh, also, please please feel free to leave critical comments (or critiques) so that I can improve on my general writing style too. Love to learn (which, incidentally, is what I should be doing now - revising for interviews and exams. Procrastination, woo).**

**Thanks again!**

Chapter One - The Battle of Hogwarts

The tension in the clearing was almost palpable. The silence was perforated only by the crackling of the fire, which cast its flickering light over the silent, cloaked figures. Heavy, clumsy footsteps nearby announced the return of Yaxley and Dolohov, who had been sent to scan the forest for Harry Potter. They emerged into the clearing, the firelight casting into harsh relief the grim apprehension that echoed by most of the assembled Death Eaters. Narcissa Malfoy's eyes lingered only momentarily on the two men, before returning as if drawn by a magnet to Voldemort. He sat as if praying, head bowed and corpse-like white hands folded over the Elder Wand.

Yaxley and Dolohov re-joined the circle, and Voldemort looked up. The pair was caught in his red gaze, neither wanting to voice the obvious and anger him. Finally, Dolohov spoke.

"No sign of him, my Lord." His voice was higher, tightened by fear. Voldemort's expression did not even flicker. He drew the Elder Wand slowly through his fingers, a cruel, taunting dance. Dolohov paled noticeably, his eyes following every movement of those long, skeletal fingers.

"My Lord –" Bellatrix leaned towards her master, a look of such intense devotion and love that, not for the first time, it churned Narcissa's stomach. Voldemort merely raised a hand and she broke off mid-sentence, contenting herself with staring at him adoringly.

"I thought he would come," said Voldemort in his high, clear voice, his eyes on the leaping flames. "I expected him to come."

Narcissa's heart began to launch itself against her ribs, so loud she was sure its desperate struggle would reach the ears of Voldemort himself.

"I was, it seems…mistaken." Before any of the gathered Death Eaters could take in this admission of failure on the part of their master, a voice spoke from the darkness of the trees.

"You weren't." Harry Potter stepped forwards and the firelight danced across his face. His green eyes leapt with sparks, and every atom of his body screamed determination. Narcissa did not read any fear in his expression, even as he took in the triumph of Voldemort's red eyes. All around her, the silence of the clearing was shattered by laughter, gasps of surprise and the deafening roars of the giants. Narcissa rose to her feet, but made no noise. She watched the two wizards face each other, red and green eyes colliding over the swirling tongues of fire.

The half-giant, tied to a tree, yelled and was silenced but Narcissa barely noticed the distraction, so intent was her scrutiny of the pair. She could not have said which of the two wizards she found more terrifying in that instant.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort said softly, caressing the words as they dripped from his tongue and into the fire. "The boy who lived."

Everything was waiting, hanging in the air. Not a single creature moved in that moment; the fire itself seemed to stop its constant writhing. Voldemort raised his wand, slowly, ever so slowly, and spoke the words. The flash of green light illuminated the dark-haired boy's face eerily, and Narcissa saw his eyes flutter close and an expression of peace steal across his face before the beam hit him squarely in the chest and he was thrown backwards in a sailing arc. He landed on the forest floor with a sickening crunch. Voldemort was thrown backwards too, landing on his back, wand still firmly grasped in his hand.

Harry Potter no longer looked like a terrifying wizard, like the Dark Lord's equal, but like the boy that he was. Death had reduced him, made him more childlike and the mother in Narcissa had the sudden urge to run and cradle him. She repressed the dangerous thought quickly, and averted her eyes from the emptied body of the child in front of her. A few of the circle turned to one another and began whispering. Voldemort had not moved.

"My Lord…_my Lord…_" Bellatrix purred to her master, approaching him somewhat warily despite the tone of her voice. "_My Lord_…"

"That will do," he said, dismissively, speaking at last. The few Death Eaters who had been by his side hurried back to join the safety of the outer circle – no one knew quite what to expect. Only Bellatrix remained kneeling at his feet. He got to his feet, kicking at the form of Bellatrix, who was still fawning at his hem.

"My Lord, let me –" she reached out, intending to brush the dirt from his robes.

"I do not require assistance," he said, coldly, not even bothering to give her a cursory glance. Bellatrix immediately withdrew her hand as though burnt, and sat cradling the offending member and staring up at her master. "The boy… is he dead?"

Nobody moved. Narcissa's eyes were still firmly averted from the crumpled body.

"You," said Voldemort, whirling to face his Death Eaters and singling out the face of Narcissa Malfoy. Her heart stilled with fear – had he heard her thoughts? He flicked his wand lazily; there was a bang and Narcissa could not prevent herself from releasing a small shriek of pain as fire coursed through the marrow of her bones. "Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."

Narcissa hurried forward with faltering step and bowed head. She knew it was all too easy to read the fear and weakness in her sunken eyes, but she did not want to meet the soul-searching gaze of those red embers that glowed in Voldemort's snake-like face. She approached the broken body, hoping that her trembling hands would not betray her inappropriate emotions.

Narcissa bent double over the boy, her long hair falling until it shielded both his face and hers from the intense gaze of Voldemort. She slid her unsteady hand beneath his shirt and let it rest above his heart, expecting to be met with stony, cold flesh. Instead, heat and life pulsed beneath her fingertips. Her breathing hitched and all her muscles contracted with shock.

"Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?"

The whisper was barely audible; her lips were an inch from his ear, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from the onlookers. She could smell the traces of forest on his skin and see the smallest sliver of green beneath fluttering eye-lashes. The entire balance of her world hung in the silence.

"Yes," he breathed back.

Relief flashed across her pale features and she dug her fingernails into his shoulder to prevent from crying out altogether. From the vantage point of the crowd behind her, she knew that it would merely look as though she were being thorough in carrying out her master's orders. Inwardly, she was caught in a raging turmoil, faced with two choices. Lie to the Dark Lord so that she might enter Hogwarts and find Draco as part of his conquering army, or hand the boy over and sacrifice her own son.

It was the easiest decision she had ever made in her life. She no longer cared whether Voldemort was victorious or not. All she wanted was to find her son.

A look of intense concentration replaced the relief on her face as she cast a non-verbal spell on him. She could not risk Voldemort discovering her lie before she had found Draco. She lifted his eyelid and peered at his green eye. There was no reaction – his body was now mimicking the aspect of death, though his mind was still utterly alive. Once satisfied, she raised her head and turned to the crowd who had been watching with bated breath.

"He is dead!" she cried. The death eaters crowed triumphantly, Bellatrix's whoops rising even above the chilling high laugh of her master. The ground beneath them trembled as the assembled wizards stamped their feet, and the air was filled with celebratory bursts of red and silver light.

Voldemort once again directed his wand at the boy, and jerked his body from the ground, tossing him high in the air once, twice, three times. His glasses flew off and landed by Dolohov's feet. The Death Eaters jeered and laughed at their master's antics. Voldemort returned the body to the ground, where Dolohov shoved Potter's glasses back on with deliberate force, as though punishing him for having made a fool of him previously. Hagrid, heaving with sobs, was ordered to carry the fragile body to the castle.

"Move," Voldemort ordered, and Hagrid began to stumble forward, his footsteps clumsy and unsteady. He tripped several times before they emerged from the forest – the tears had so blurred his vision that it was difficult to navigate the myriad of roots and small shrubs that appeared in his path. Each false step only made the Death Eaters laugh more. The giants crashed along behind the victory procession, knocking trees over and causing their inhabitants to rise, shrieking, into the sky. They marched on in this fashion until the trees began to thin and allow more light through. When they reached the outskirts of the forest, the procession came to a halt.

Narcissa felt the air chill and the dementors pass overhead, but the knowledge that her son was alive and safe inside the castle burned brightly in her chest and she was unaffected by their passing.

Voldemort's magnified voice rang through the air, the waves of words rolling out through the trees and across the grounds and the ruins of the school.

"Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone.

The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman or child, will be slaughtered, as will every member of their family. Come out of the castle, now, kneel before me and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live, and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together."

His words were met with utter silence.

"Come," Voldemort ordered his followers, and as one they marched towards the light.

"Stop." Voldemort gestured for them to spread out in a line facing the front doors of the school, blasted open during the battle. Then people began to appear, Professor McGonagall leading the crowd of bloodied, singed warriors. Narcissa watched, scanning each face for her son's.

"NO!" The scream was torn from McGonagall herself, the old woman falling to her knees, her face the picture of terrible despair. Bellatrix, at her master's side, laughed cruelly. More voices of denial and pain joined themselves to hers, rising above the broken spires of the school as they saw their hero and their friend lying broken in the half-giant's arms.

"SILENCE!" Voldemort cried, and a forced silence fell upon the assembled crowd. "It is over! Set him down, Hagrid, at my feet, where he belongs!" Voldemort's wand forced Hagrid to obey, folding him in half and causing the body to hit the grass roughly. Hagrid's arms still trembled, his entire body racked with powerful sobs.

"You see?" said Voldemort, pacing beside the body of their fallen hero. "Harry Potter is dead! Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!"

"He beat you!" a voice from the crowd yelled, shattering the silencing charm. Another wave of abuse crashed over the line of Death Eaters, but Narcissa was impervious to it and searched tirelessly for the face of Draco. Voldemort cast another, more powerful silencing spell.

"He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds," he resumed, a cruel smile utterly devoid of mirth playing across his lips, "killed while trying to save himself-"

A boy Narcissa vaguely recognised rushed forwards from the crowd, wand pointed straight at Voldemort. Before he could launch a curse, Voldemort Disarmed him with a lazy flick of his writst.

"And who is this?" he hissed, the serpentine sound sending chills up Narcissa's spine. "Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?"

Bellatrix recognised him before anyone else, and laughed gleefully.

"It is Neville Longbottom, my Lord! The boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?"

"Ah, yes, I remember." He turned to face Neville, standing alone, defiantly, in the no-man's-land between the survivors and the Death Eaters. Narcissa's heart lurched unexpectedly for him, yet another brave child facing the most terrible wizard of all time without a flicker of fear in his eyes. "You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom."

"I'll join you when hell freezes over," Neville spat in return. There was an answering cheer from the crowd, where Voldemort's silencing charm seemed merely to slip off.

"Very well," the Dark Lord said in a dangerously silky voice. Narcissa knew this tone well, the tone that always preceded his most cruel curses. "On your head be it."

Voldemort waved his wand and something that looked like a bizarrely-shaped bird flew out of one of the castle's shattered windows and into his outstretched hand. He held it up so that all assembled might see it clearly in the dying light: the Sorting Hat. Narcissa watched, one pair of eyes among thousands, the thin fingers curled around the battered old hat. Waiting. So much of her life was comprised of waiting, now. Frozen moments, an odd hiatus that she neither enjoyed nor disliked. And so she watched as the man she'd once called a Lord stepped forward and rammed the dirty, misshapen object on Longbottom's head. Still, all assembled did not dare to tear their eyes away from the pair. Voldemort paused and it seemed to Narcissa that everyone held their breath. Then, with an almost dismissive flick of Voldemort's wand, the hat was engulfed in flames that scrambled over one another in a frantic race to the clouds.

There was another pause that seemed to last for minutes, but really could only have lasted the time to blink, and then screams rent through the clear air of dawn. Then time sped up and fell into chaos. A cacophony of sound from the distant boundary of the school heralded the arrival of a mass of people who began a mad dash towards the school where Narcissa watched a boy burn. At the same time, a giant staggered with great, uneven steps from around the side of the castle and yelled something nonsensical. His cry was answered by roars as the giants behind her broke rank and stampeded towards the lone giant. Then an arrow embedded itself into the ground by her feet, and another, and another, even before the sound of the twang of bowstrings had reached their ears. All around, her masked companions shouted and ran haphazardly, trying to dodge the cloud of arrows that was still raining down among them. Narcissa had begun to run closer to the castle, dragging Lucius behind her, when silver and red caught the bleeding sun of dawn and she halted. Once again, every eye seemed to be drawn to the figure of Neville Longbottom (who was, she registered distantly, no longer on fire) as, in a sweeping silver arc, he brought the sword down and the neck of the Dark Lord's snake spun high into the air.

Nagini, or the body of Nagini, thrashed terribly on the blood-stained earth for a moment, caught in the throngs of death, and then the movement ceased. Narcissa, her vantage point obscured by a crowd of Death Eaters, merely saw the jet of green light out of the corner of her eye. And in the uproar of battle, no one heard the body fall.

Now, though, Narcissa was forced to relinquish her grasp on her husband's wrist and fight for her life as dodged the giants' thundering feet. This new danger that made the earth quake so much that it was difficult just to stay upright, forced the wizards inside the relative safety, but dangerous confinement, of the castle. Spurts of vivid light were thrown willy-nilly and people fell where they stood, only to be trampled underfoot by the giants, who were now fending off the claws of Hippogriffs. Narcissa was washed up the front steps by a thronging tide of people, Death Eaters and defenders of Hogwarts equally as grim-faced and bloody. The fight had long been drained out of her, so she raised her wand and cast a disillusionment charm over herself and began to run.

She elbowed her way through the crowds, just making it past the Great Hall as a swarm of Hogwarts house-elves poured into the melee, waving carving knives and cleavers just below the knees of the duelling wizards. Now, she only had one thing on her mind. She had to find her son, regardless of the consequences of this battle. She knew that the Death Eaters were outnumbered now, buckling under the weight of the onslaught of reinforcements, but Voldemort was undefeated and worse, he was angry. Only one thing was for certain: the battle would be long and bloody.

~\/~

Neville was dead. Harry was dead. And Voldemort was still very much undefeated, although the same could not be said for the rest of his army. The ground had stopped shaking quite so much under Hermione's feet, so she assumed that the giants had fled. The Death Eaters were outnumbered but were putting up a valiant fight, she admitted to herself dryly as she made a bee-line for a young-ish looking Ravenclaw boy whose shield charm was on the verge of splintering under the force of the attacking curse. She cast a swift stunning spell and grabbed him by the hand. She knew that her words would merely be swallowed up in the deafening noise of the battle, so she tried to convey as much of her message as she could through rudimentary gestures. He nodded, and dashed off. Hermione looked around, deflecting stray curse that was headed towards her as though she were brushing away an annoying flag. Her next target was quickly acquired and she dashed through the crowds.

Hermione had understood almost immediately why all of the curses had merely slid off of the assembled masses. Love, the most powerful spell of all. And so, she would make sure that Harry's final gift to them would not be wasted. The buds of a plan began to blossom in her mind and she had sprung into action, gathering small groups of people (young Hogwarts pupils, first and foremost) and whispering brief instructions to them. One by one, they were slipping away through a maze of corridors.

Once she was satisfied that all of the younger years had been safely conveyed her message, she ducked under a tapestry and dropped into a dark passageway. She twisted and turned through the tunnels that lead her throughout the school until she emerged in a courtyard. It was as yet undamaged by the battle, and was filled with groups of people who, removed from the scenes of destruction and death, looked less like warriors and more like the frightened children they were. "Accio broomsticks!" Hermione screamed, pointing her wand straight in the air. There was a pause, long enough for worry to begin to build in her chest. She hadn't thought this through at all – what if the broom shed had been destroyed in the fight? Had she led them here for nothing? However, a flock of broomsticks, in various states of disrepair soon appeared over the spires of the school, and she permitted herself a small smile. They landed in an untidy heap at her feet. She threw the brooms at the people closest to her, keeping the best one back.

"Okay, listen carefully all of you. They should be too busy fighting each other to look up at the sky, but I don't want to take any unnecessary risks. Leave in groups of…" she paused to make a quick head count, "ten. Once you get above that cloud bank, you should be basically invisible, so aim for that as quickly as you can. Go home, tell your families and go as far away as you can. Right, first ten, ready?" They nodded, faces set in grim determination. She paused briefly, letting silence settle over the courtyard, until she was certain that she could still hear the distant booms of battle. "Go!" They pushed off the ground in unison, gaining height quickly. "Good luck," she murmured, more to herself than to the distant figures as they disappeared into the safety of the cloud. The minute they were out of sight, she turned back to the expectant faces before her. "Okay, get yourselves into groups of ten as quickly and quietly as possible." While the shuffling was taking place, she focused her attention on the broom she had kept back and began duplicating it until she had eleven identical brooms. "Second ten, take your brooms. Ready? Go." Once again, she watched them until they were lost in the dense grey of the cloudbank, before frantically duplicating the brooms once more. Wave after wave of pupils were watched closely by those deep brown eyes until they reached safety. Finally, there was only one girl left. Hermione wiped her brow, which had begun to drip with sweat. The girl, a Ravenclaw several years younger than her, was pale and shaking with fear. The explosions were looming closer, but were far enough off not to pose an immediate threat.

"What's your name?" Hermione asked gently.

"Claire," the girl replied through a constricted throat.

"Here," she said, holding out the last broom, their last method of escape. She suddenly knew with absolute certainty that she would not need it. "Take it and go home to your family, Claire. Good luck." Hermione let her hand rest for a moment on Claire's shoulder, trying simultaneously to give strength and to draw courage, before darting into the passageway that was concealed within the base of a column. She climbed carefully down the ladder, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Her feet hit solid ground at last, and she sprinted off deeper into the heart of the school. It was easier to find her way back to the Great Hall than to find her way out of it, a part of her couldn't help but note. All she had to do was run towards the deafening noise of dying.

She entered the Great Hall again to be greeted with a different scene than the one she'd left behind. There were fewer people fighting now, and more lying unmoving on the stone floors. Ron and Ginny were back-to-back, alternating between shielding and cursing the straggles of Death Eaters who still remained. Voldemort had abandoned his central position and was nowhere to be seen. _Typical_, she thought, _he left the dying for other people to do._ Every few minutes another Death Eater would vanish in a spiral of black smoke, fleeing after their cowardly master. Hermione's wand sliced through the air as she leapt into action once more. At the far end of the hall, close to the entrance, she caught a flash of familiar white-blond hair before Draco Malfoy, too, vanished with his mother.

It did not take much longer for the Death Eaters to disappear altogether. But when the last of them did, no cheer rose from the anguished faces of the victorious. Grief at the people they'd lost, and the promise of a better future that had slipped through their fingers, murdered their voices in their throats. Instead, they held onto one another so as not to sink to the ground and lie among the bodies of the dead. Silence fell throughout the school, settling on them like a cloud of dust, as the sun rose through the shattered windows.

~\/~

Hermione woke with a start, blinking away the images that lingered from her fitful dozing. At the sound of raised male voices, she kicked off the blanket that was tangled around her legs and hurried down the crooked spiral staircase. She'd taken to sleeping in her clothes (if it could be called sleeping – more often than not, she just lay awake until her alarm rang) since she'd had to fight the first night raid in her pyjamas. On the way down, she checked her watch. Arthur was back early. That usually only meant one thing: people had died. The Order of the Pheonix had assumed a new role since the leadership had passed to Arthur Weasley following the Battle of Hogwarts. Now, they not only fought the Death Eater raids (which were unbearably frequent), but had set up and maintained refugee camps composed of muggles and wizards alike. Arthur had been called away by a raid on London, or what was left of it, and the fact that he had returned so soon was a bad sign.

Hermione could not have been more right. In fact, she caught herself wishing that the death of people had been the reason he had returned so early once she'd registered the sight that greeted her in the kitchen. Arthur, exhaustion visible in every line in his pale face, was seated at the Burrow's familiar kitchen table which had been transformed into the desk of the Order. George Weasley and Dean Thomas, faces prematurely aged by the horrors they'd seen and the losses they'd suffered, were standing well back from the table, wands drawn and identically furious looks on their faces.

"What were you thinking, Arthur? He's inner circle, practically sits at You-Know-Who's right hand!" Dean said through gritted teeth, his face taut with anger and the knuckles of his wand-hand bone-white.

"I was thinking, Dean, that I am in charge of the Order now, and I'll thank you to remember it," Arthur retorted curtly. Dean's mouth shaped itself into the thin, grim line that Hermione was now used to seeing. "He surrendered himself and his wand to me personally during the raid, and we do not merely slaughter those who are unarmed and have given themselves up, or we are no better than those whom we fight." Arthur's voice had lost the tone of kindness and conspiratorial humour that had pervaded Hermione's childhood memories of him, and had, in the two years of constant war, become hardened and militant. With each death of his friends and family, a little more of the softness had eked out of him. The day he lost Molly, he lost the last of the light in his eyes.

"That's all very well, but doesn't explain why the hell you brought him here, Dad. Now, when he escapes, he'll be able to bring all of his little friends right back here to slaughter us. You've killed us all, Dad." George's voice was as empty as his father's eyes.

Arthur barely registered his son's cruel words. They bounced off of his shell of a body with an almost audibly hollow sound. "I brought him here because he said he had something important to tell us about…Harry." He paused, his mouth struggling to form the words of that once-familiar name, and his eyes involuntarily darted to a person who was concealed from Hermione's view by the half-open door. Ginny, it seemed, had had as much trouble sleeping as Hermione. "Malfoy, I think now would be a good time for you to speak up."

Those two syllables knocked the air out of Hermione's lungs. She was filled with the same boiling anger that was no doubt raging through her three friends. She entered the kitchen more fully, closing the door behind her to reveal the deeply familiar form of Draco Malfoy. She was pleased to see he looked deeply uncomfortable, hunched over one end of the table as though bent over by the force of their abhorrence of him. His eyes flicked up from his inspection of the tabletop momentarily as the door clicked shut, and lingered on her face. Self-consciously, she reached up and touched the scar that disfigured her face – the object of his fairly obvious scrutiny – and his eyes returned to the table.

"Well, Malfoy?" Dean said, brusquely.

"I want – I need – I can't talk unless –" Malfoy began, uncharacteristically hesitant. His voice was deeper than she remembered it and hoarse (no doubt from all the killing curses he'd been hurling at her people, she reminded herself). Nobody spoke, but Arthur cocked an eyebrow, a non-verbal order to continue. "I won't talk unless I'm guaranteed protection," Malfoy resumed, with a little of his usual drawl. Ginny scoffed, but Arthur nodded. Emboldened by this success, Malfoy spoke again. "And I'll only speak to her. Alone." He lifted his arm and pointed a finger directly at Hermione's heart, with barely a tremor. The room erupted.

"Absolutely not!" Dean roared, at the same time as George growled, "Out of the bloody question." Ginny merely opted for a nonsensical stream of expletives, aimed at the back of Malfoy's silver-blond head. Arthur looked vaguely uncomfortable and doubtful, but held his tongue and looked up at Hermione. She narrowed her eyes in thought, one finger of her left hand unconsciously tracing the rough line of the livid scar that tore her face in two, running from the corner of her left eye to the middle of her chin. She was unaware of what an impressive figure she made, dark eyes blazing against the pale porcelain of her skin, beautiful despite the deep purple ravine that slashed itself across her face. Malfoy looked at her expectantly.

"Get up," she barked at him, tersely. He obeyed immediately, then looked annoyed at himself for being so submissive. The others fell silent, no one daring to question her judgement. She opened the door and pulled out her wand. "After you," she said, prodding him roughly. She directed him into the living room, which was dusty with underuse. Truth be told, no one could bring themselves to light a fire and melt into the brightly coloured cushions with so many holes in their lives. She flicked her wand at the lamp on the coffee table, and gestured for Malfoy to take a seat on the rickety, worn sofa. She stood opposite him, her back against the mantelpiece so as not to have to look at the photographs of the Weasley family before the war had torn them apart. She jutted her chin at him, as if to say _speak_.

"How've you been, Granger?" He forced his lips to smirk, but even she could tell his heart wasn't in it.

"Cut the crap," she snapped. He looked taken aback, unnecessarily so in her opinion. The war had stolen what little patience she'd had for him.

"Very well. Before I begin, here are my demands." She raised an eyebrow. _Well, some things never change. Still as cocky and self-righteous as ever._ "First, if you repeat anything of what I am about to tell you to anyone, I will consider our agreement as nullified and will leak the location of your safe house to the Dark Lord. The fewer people who know this, the better. Second, you or your best people will provide constant protection for me until my death, or the defeat of the Dark Lord." The reverential epitaph for Voldemort hung heavily in the room while Hermione considered his terms.

"Are you done?"

"For now, yes." He leant back into the sofa and cracked his knuckles with something akin to grim satisfaction. Obviously, he'd interpreted her lack of outraged objections as acquiescence.

"Then speak."

"Why so monosyllabic, Granger? Where is your love of language, your delight for the words that used to tumble from your mouth, unstoppable streams of correct answers and witticisms? Where is the know-it-all, the _brightest witch of our age_?" He taunted her lazily, and she rose to the bait more violently than he had anticipated.

In the blink of an eye, she was bending over him with her wand pressing into his jugular. Dark storm clouds of fear rolled across the light grey of his eye and he swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing against the tip of her wand. "They _cut_ that out of me," she hissed, in a dangerously low voice, angling her head so that the stretched, shiny skin of her scar caught the light and the purple blossomed over her cheek.

He lifted his hands in mock surrender, and she lowered her wand reluctantly. "This is not a game, Malfoy. I think you'd better start talking," she said, once she was safely pressed against the mantelpiece.

"You may want to sit down, Granger."

"I'll stand."

He shrugged, rubbing the spot on his neck where her wand had been and she noted with unsuppressed satisfaction that she'd left a mark. When his eyes met hers again, the forced playfulness was gone and his face was deadly serious.

"I'll start at the beginning then, shall I? My beginning, that is, because like you I was pretty much thrown in the deep end. An hour before the raid on London, my mother came to my room in secret. You have to understand that she risked a lot by seeking me out, because since the death of my father we have been separated. I have quarters with the rest of the recruits of my age – contrary to popular opinion, I am no longer in the inner circle – and the recruits are not allowed to see their parents, regardless how close they are to the Dark Lord. I assume it's some sort of character building thing. However, I digress. She came to me, an hour before the raid, when she was sure that I would be alone in my room. I had not seen her in two years, but she barely had time to greet me before she launched into her tale.

The day of the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter walked into the Forbidden Forest, walking knowingly towards the Dark Lord and his death. My mother says that he faced his death bravely, and was hit squarely in the chest by the killing curse. He fell to the ground and the Dark Lord instructed my mother to verify that he was as dead as he appeared to be. My mother was sensible of the honour of this task, and hurried forward to do as she was commanded. She bent down to check his pulse, expecting, naturally, to feel nothing but instead of cold skin her fingers brushed warm, beating life."

Hermione's heart stopped in her chest, and her breathing stilled. Everything went dark and slowed down. Silence roared in her ears, and she clutched the mantelpiece like a drowning man clutched at a life-vest, trying desperately to keep afloat in reality. Then, life exploded back into action; her heart sputtered and began beating faster than ever before, and light flooded her eyes. She looked at Draco, gasping noisily for breath, and begging him not to be lying. Had the past two years not drained her of every tear her soul possessed, she would have broken down and sobbed like a baby, despite his cool, detached gaze. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. To give him credit, he allowed her a little bit of time to digest the earth-shattering news before pressing on with his narrative.

"Sensible that I was still in the castle, although dead or alive she did not know, my mother was torn between her duty to the Dark Lord and her love for me. In a split-second, she had made a decision: she ascertained from Potter somehow that I was alive and safe, and declared him dead. However, she feared that the Dark Lord would still want to verify the truth of her claim, given that all of Potter's fame stemmed from the fact that he had already survived the killing curse. Here, with the best of intentions, she made her mistake. Wordlessly, while the rest of the Death Eaters celebrated her lie, she cast a full body-binding jinx on him. I do not know whether she intended to remove it later, while not under the eyes of the Dark Lord, but I know that she acted in the interest of Potter, since the effects of the jinx mimic the rigor mortis of the corpse. Regardless of her intentions, she never found an opportune time to release Potter from his jinx.

The Dark Lord, true to his nature, has not buried Potter. He would never accord to Potter the sanctity and peace of a tomb, but has hidden him as he hides all of his most prized possessions. None but the Dark Lord knows where Potter's body resides when it is not being paraded as a trophy to those unfortunate enough to be captured by the Death Eaters. It is, I suppose, although obviously I could not presume to know _my lord_," she noted the tone of deep, barely hidden disgust in his voice as he uttered the term, "and his complex motivations, his way of proving once and for all that the Battle of Hogwarts was not a crippling defeat. Not that anyone would ever dare suggest that he ran away and left his followers to die at your hands, of course. Regardless, Potter's body is his most powerful tool over his loyal supporters to ensure their undying servitude."

Silence reigned again in the room, but the noise in Hermione's head was deafening. Thoughts whirred and collided in her mind, all to the background scream of _HE'S ALIVE HE'S ALIVE HE'S ALIVE_. Her hands shook as she sheathed her wand and made a bolting move towards the door.

"NO!" Malfoy bellowed, leaping up with surprising agility and encircling her wrist with iron fingers. "Nobody else can know of this. I've endangered my mother's life enough just by telling you. What if one of them is captured after you've repeated everything I've disclosed? My mother will be slaughtered. _Potter_ will be slaughtered, and everything you've worked for will be in vain." Hermione had to admit that he had a point. She could not risk the death of Harry, now that she knew he was alive. She nodded to show that she'd understood, and the grip on her arm slackened.

"Why me? Why tell me?" she asked, after a while. The way she saw it, he had everything to lose and nothing to gain by telling her, by surrendering to the Order and betraying Voldemort.

Malfoy sighed and ran a hand through his silvery hair, which had grown longer and unruly with a lack of care. "I thought you'd ask. Several reasons, the least of which being that you're supposedly the brightest witch of our age, or so they all kept saying at Hogwarts, so you're likely to be the best at Occumulency. Useful in the eventuality we get captured." Hermione chose to ignore the _we_. "The main reason, the reason I'm here, is the Elder Wand. The Dark Lord killed his favourite servant, Snape, because he felt that the wand was linked to Snape when Snape killed Dumbledore. However, this has not worked and it is only a matter of time before he traces the ownership to me. As far as I can work it out, the ownership of the wand was accorded to me when I disarmed Dumbledore. If I have managed to construe this, the Dark Lord will too. There will, sooner or later, be a death sentence on my head and I cannot just sit and pretend to serve a master who I know will turn on me.

I was planning to escape somehow before my mother came to me. But now I think it's clear that my only chance of survival is with the resistance, with the Order and with Potter."

It was a selfish reason, a last-ditch attempt at survival on his part, and Hermione was sure that if there had been any other way, Malfoy would have taken it. Nevertheless, Harry was alive and there was a spark of hope in her heart at last.

"Do you have a plan, at least?" she asked, in a voice as nonchalant as she could possibly manage, given the torrent of emotions that was constricting her throat.

"Obviously not, Granger, that's your job. All I know is that I want to live, and my best shot at doing that is saving Potter, as much as it pains me to admit it. You figure out the rest."

Hermione didn't need his permission; already her mind was formulating various different scraps of ideas, gathering them together while making lists of things they'd need to take. She paused from the mental checklists, suddenly remembering exactly who she was dealing with.

"Give me your hand," she ordered. Malfoy looked annoyingly baffled. _God, why were they all so slow?_ She thought to herself, and the familiar frustration that she had felt with Ron and Harry rushed through her momentarily, replaced by a wave of pain as she remembered that the three of them would likely never be together again. She shook her head imperceptibly to rid herself of these thoughts, and turned again to Malfoy, who was still wearing a look of irritating confusion. "Unbreakable Oath. I'm not taking any chances with you. You may be the messenger of the best news I've ever heard, but you're still a little piece of filth and I don't trust you as far as I can throw you. So give me your damn hand, _please_."

"Find a way to work in my earlier demands – they still stand. No telling anybody and protection – do not leave my side. And also, I'm going to need a wand if we're going to fight the Dark Lord and all of the Death Eaters." His voice took on the detestably self-important tone that she'd once been so used to hearing from him.

"If you're having a wand, I'm going to have some conditions of my own. You may not use your wand for harm against myself or any member of the Order, innocent wizards or muggles. You may only use your wand for harm against You-Know-Who and his associates. In return, as a gesture of good faith, I will not use my wand for harm against your mother. You may not escape, however dangerous the situation gets. This stands until You-Know-Who has fallen, or either one of us is dead."

He nodded, his face set in a grim line of determination. "What choice do I have?"

"Exactly."

"So let's do this thing, then." He grasped her hand in his, both elbows resting on the coffee table directly beneath the only light source in the room. Then he paused. "Don't' we need a witness? Are you going to call the Weaslette to officiate?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, she'd ask too many questions. And we said we weren't going to tell anyone, did we not?"

"Then how –"

She didn't let him finish the sentence. As usual, she'd thought of everything before he'd even blinked. The very act of planning for a covert mission reminded her of the person she was two years ago, and made her feel a little less empty inside. Harry was alive, and she was going to get him home safely. She didn't let her mind stray to the other figure of her past, not yet, but busied herself explaining her idea to Malfoy who, she had to admit, was a lot more mentally agile than the others had been.

"It's an Unbreakable Vow I found in the Restricted Section at Hogwarts in fifth year. You don't need a witness and you only need one wand, so it's perfectly fitted for our situation."

"So what happens if you break it?" Malfoy asked, out of pure curiosity before he'd even considered how the words would sound in her ears.

"Why? Got any plans to betray me? Because I'd think twice about it; you won't die, but you'll sure as hell wish you were dead." She left it at that, just enough unpleasantness alluded to to make him seriously uncomfortable and (hopefully) dissuade him from trying anything funny. He said nothing in response, merely gestured for her to get on with it.

Hermione wriggled her hand out of his grasp in order to crack her knuckles, a tic she'd picked up from Patrick O'Mally, an Irish auror who'd been killed last year in an attack on one of the Order's muggle camps. She slipped her left hand back into his, arranging their fingers with her right until she was happy.

She cleared her throat. "Don't break eye-contact," she warned him, and then she began. "Whomsoever doth break this most solemn oath shall bring upon his head the full terror of the consequences, such as those that wert cast upon the son of the first man. The terms clearly statet are fully binding, to which each party must acquiesce with every fibre of his self or the oath will be nullified in its entirety." She paused as instructed by the ancient text, and stared deeply into the grey eyes opposite her, trying to read any flash of doubt. She knew with every atom of her being that this was what she had to do, what she had been born to do just has Harry had been born to defeat Voldemort. Malfoy did not falter, but matched her seering, searching gaze with one of his own. Neither blinked nor wavered from their study of the swirling irises of the other. Still locked in Malfoy's gaze, Hermione raised her wand and sketched a complex knot from writhing strands of fire above their clasped hands. As the last line faded into darkness, she pronounced the final words. "_Siempre iuncto._"

The knot she had sketched in mid-air blazed on the inside of both of their wrists, causing Malfoy to gasp in pain and Hermione to grit her teeth. It burned brightly, then disappeared altogether, leaving no visible sign of it ever having been there. Malfoy freed his hand, rubbing his wrist.

"It that it, then, or is there some other ancient torture you want to try out on me while you've got me in a vulnerable position?"

"Well, now that you mention it, I found this other spell in the Restricted Section. It's a bit gruesome, but I've been saving it just for you…" Her tone was deadly serious, but this was the closest she'd come to a joke since before the Battle of Hogwarts.

"See, that's more like the insufferable Granger I knew. Although, in fairness, you used to just tell me to get stuffed. You were never quite so sadistic before."

"The war changes people." A grim silence settled over them again. "We should get moving as soon as possible," she resumed, all business once more. "I need to pack a bag, so let's go." She clambered to her feet and stalked out of the room, pleased to hear that Malfoy was forced to run to keep up. She climbed the rickety stairs two at a time, adding things to her ever-growing list as she went. She stopped outside the door to what had been her room for two years. Originally, it was Percy's, but he went into hiding almost immediately after the Battle.

"Never thought I'd be invited into your room, Grange," he said, with the ghost of his familiar smirk.

"Oh, I'm not inviting you in. Wait here," she ordered, shutting the door on his face. In fact, she had been about to bring him in, but his comment irritated her to such an extent that she petulantly shut him out. It wasn't as though the room was extremely personal – she'd left the décor exactly as she'd found it, and Percy's clothes were still hanging in the wardrobe and in neat piles in the chest of drawers. The few scraps of clothing she'd borrowed (permanently) from Ginny or from the smoking ruins of houses after brutal attacks by Death Eaters – she'd quickly overcome her revulsion at stealing clothes from the dead, because she did what she could to survive in the desperate times – were in small piles by her bed. The mounds of books were the only thing that marked the room out as her own, and it was to these that she rushed first.

The beaded bag she'd carried throughout the English countryside two years ago was hidden behind a pile of healing books that she'd swiped from St Mungo's during a raid. Inside was everything, just as she'd left it. She added a few of the more general healing books, some of the more stomachable books on the dark arts. "What else do I need? Let's see… No, no…Maybe?" she chanted to herself as she rummaged around, throwing books over her shoulder.

"You definitely don't need _that_," Malfoy drawled from behind her, causing her to jump and whirl around.

"What are you doing here?" she said, startled despite herself. "I thought I told you to wait outside."

"I've been sitting here for about ten minutes. Do you think you could possibly lower your wand now, Granger?"

She looked down at her arm, surprised to see that she was clutching her wand and pointing it directly at his heart. The war had honed her reflexes, at least, she noted with grim detachment. To Malfoy, she merely grunted and returned to her piles of books. She tried not to think about the last time she'd seen him, as a flash of blond hair through an opportune gap in the crowd of fighting people, _running away_, tried to convince herself that she had to trust him for Harry's sake. She could feel his eyes on her back as she worked her way through her pile of things, alternating between packing in her cavernous beaded bag (blocking out memories that floated to the surface every time she looked at it for a little too long) and tossing things over her shoulder. She tried not to let it disturb her, but despite herself she felt her skin crawl a little under the intensity of his observation.

"Stop it," she said without turning round, after it became unbearable.

"Stop what?" he replied dazedly, as though returning from somewhere far away.

"Stop with the creepy staring, I'm trying to concentrate." She glanced over her shoulder, only to wish she hadn't. He was fully stretched out on her bed with his arms folded beneath his head. She was almost reminded of an ad she'd once seen for a holiday in the Bahamas, where a man lay staring at white-gold sand and azure sea. Almost, had it not been for the look on his face, which was far from relaxed. "What did you bring with you that I need to pack?" she asked.

"Nothing, Granger, I didn't exactly have time to pack a trunk before I left. That would have been rather conspicuous, don't you think?" he drawled sarcastically. She breathed deeply, trying to control her irritation.

And failing miserably.

"You're a wizard, aren't you? You'd have thought a pure-blood would have figured out that he could use his wand and say some pretty words to make a trunk out of something small and inconspicuous. You always were an idiot, but this is really dumb, even for you. You didn't think to take anything, on the off-chance that I'd actually want to rescue my best friend from the clutches of Vol—You-Know Who? My god, Malfoy, it seems you've actually managed to regress to a level of troll-like intelligence. It's a wonder You-Know-Who even lets you hold a wand, let alone use it to kill people with far greater mental capacity than you."

"Shut up, Granger. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't tell me to shut up. You can't come here with some half-arsed plan to get me to save your miserable backside (not for the first time, might I add) and not bring anything at all. What were you planning on eating, or buying food with, or wearing? What about some handy stocks of potions? I'm sure your Death Eater lair must be full of stuff you've stolen from the houses of your victims –" Here she stopped automatically, suddenly realising that she was the one who stole from the houses of his victims. She felt a little guilty about her rant, considering it was about nothing at all, but she was still angry at him, or in his general direction. He too looked furious for an instant, but fixed his customary look of indifference on his face when he met her eye.

"Are you done?"

She opened her mouth to growl a rude reply, but voices drifted up through the floorboards and signalled the return of the Order. She shut her mouth abruptly and got to her feet, gesturing with her head that he was to follow her downstairs. She had decided it would be better for both of them right now if she just didn't speak to him at all. She didn't want to risk killing him and breaking the vow they had taken. He too, kept his mouth shut, and they trooped down the stairs in strained silence.


End file.
